Tuesday, 28 October 2014

We had the most dramatic

thunderstorm I can remember the night before last. The sky kept lighting up like day with both sheet and fork lightning. I am still amazed that we did not lose power - like the other half of the city. I am even more amazed that no real damage was done because outside my bedroom window is a little dent in the ground where the lightning hit the gravel at the edge of the garden. Yes, it was a little bit dramatic.The girl in the greengrocery told me that she had been out. She could see the storm coming in and left the event she was at to go home and take her two dogs inside. Oh yes, they have a good kennel but they were frightened. Other animals must be too. I know I hoped that our visiting cat was safely inside and, in between the bangs, I heard someone take their dog indoors. (I know they did because it stopped howling.)There is a different sort of thunderstorm in this morning's paper. The media finally managed to get permission to print a letter of resignation. It makes interesting reading.I normally would not take too much notice of such things - or the sort of headlines the media provide with such stories. I don't know the writer of the letter. So, why did I notice it this time?The writer was resigning his position on a government board. People must resign from boards on occasion. What was so different about this? His letter makes some accusations about the way the board, which is supposedly independent, is working. The accusations don't surprise me. I have worked with government boards - and often detested doing so. They tend to be political even when they are supposed to be apolitical. They tend not to get things done in time or not done at all. Sometimes they simply cannot do anything.But this letter accuses them of not doing things which could be done and not doing them because other members of the board are colluding with the government - and that collusion is costing the taxpayers. Even that should not surprise people but one of the issues the board deals with is something that is vital. They deal with water. The government is set to benefit from what people have to pay for water but it won't go back into building a better water supply. We have a desalination plant in mothballs. Ageing water mains break. There is talk of taxing rainwater tanks on private properties and dams farmers build to supply livestock. The man who resigned is an economist. He presumably understands basic economics. If he believes that water bills could be reduced for the good of the economy then perhaps we should be listening. Perhaps he is right about the way we are handling the storm water?